


What's in a Name Anyways?

by Temporarily



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Abuse of Metaphors, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Closeted Romantic Light, Drama, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Fluff, I swear, M/M, Murder, One-Sided Amane Misa/Yagami Light, Rem Regrets, Ryuk thinks this whole soulmates thing is hilarious, Slow Burn, Some Humor, does it count as, guess which side it is, if there's still, or Enemies to Friends to Frienemies back to Friends again and then Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:08:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23200726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporarily/pseuds/Temporarily
Summary: L awoke the morning of his sixteenth birthday thinking only of breakfast pastries and the Crossword Killer, his current case. It wasn't until Watari asked him about it while delivering the desired sweets that he even remembered his soulmate mark should have appeared overnight./In Light Yagami’s class, it seemed everyone and their grandmother was obsessed with their soulmate. Not Light. He had loftier, more sophisticated priorities than matters mundane enough to ensnare the attention span of the pubescent masses.…But not many.
Relationships: Amane Misa/Rem, Amane Misa/Yagami Light, L/Yagami Light, unrequited:
Comments: 110
Kudos: 608





	1. Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gooooood yaaaaa’ll fffffffffff  
> I have been writing this. For YEARS. I FINALLY finished it because of this corona quarantine and I’m so excited I just have to post it right now fuck it proof-reading can wait.  
> Updates every Wednesday (except April 1st I’ve got something else planned). Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day! Happy 2020 Death Note Revival! Happy Corona Quarantine, take care of yourself! It’s gonna be a good time. Now it’s time for another one of the Least Original Soulmate AU’s in the Death Note fandom here we GO!!!

L awoke the morning of his sixteenth birthday thinking only of breakfast pastries and the Crossword Killer, his current case. It wasn't until Watari asked him about it while delivering the desired sweets that he even remembered his soulmate mark should have appeared overnight.

Most people might marvel at how you could manage to forget the coming of such a monumental occasion. But having a disinterested view on romance and a million other, more important things to think about—most of them having life or death consequences—will do that to you.

L pulled back his sleeve to behold a small collection of kanji binding his left wrist with a pitch promise. For a moment, he put a deliberate effort into _not_ translating it. He simply looked at it, pleased for some unfathomable reason at how the finite shade of black contrasted with his skin like ink on paper. At how the symbols seemed to be a dancing form of written art when your eyes skimmed them. 

Then he looked across the top of his strawberry foot-stack (saturated with powdered sugar, whipped cream, a scoop of ice cream, the works), and informed Watari that his soulmate's name was Moon Yagami. 

DN

Yagami-Light had difficulty falling asleep his last night as a fifteen-year-old. Though he hid it well, even he was not immune to the anticipation of knowing the name of his soul's match.

Light didn't doubt that such a person would have to be quite a remarkable individual. Just as remarkable as the young prodigy knew himself to be.

He woke up a good hour before he usually did, and as soon as the dream scraps drained from his mind enough for the consecutive series of words, "Birthday-Sixteen-Soulmate-Mark" to replace them, he was ripping off his nightshirt and checking his torso for elegant scribblings. 

It was a somewhat embarrassing leap of logic to check the patch of skin directly over his heart first. Soulmarks rarely appeared there. A deep and personal bond had to be formed before the mark would shift there from wherever its first place of origin had been.

Light found the name sprawled in a vertical line from the knuckle of his index finger to the side of his wrist. _L. Lawliet._ Light traced it with a fingernail a couple of times, then with the first writing utensil he grabbed off his desk. He inhaled and silently rolled the texture of the word around on his tongue, with all those looping variations of l and a nice clean cut-off at the t, grinning and giddy and more _present_ than he'd been for a long time.

" _L. Lawliet,_ "he confided to his room.

It wasn't until he was starting his first worksheet of the day at school that Light realized why the mark had such an oddly specific placement. The name was almost brazenly visible when he angled his hand to write. 

Throughout that day the mark was a constant reminder to do his best, to become his best, in anticipation of when he and Lawliet would meet.

DN

Given his extensive resources and talents, L could have easily tracked his soulmate down. He had every incentive to do so. Sheer curiosity and the promise of one who could allegedly understand him on a deeper level would be enough motivation for anyone to rush the encounter.

He didn’t. Instead, the great detective L focused on, well, becoming exactly that. A great detective. His reputation wasn’t quite all there at sixteen, but it rapidly grew to match his abilities over time.

Whether he could mindlessly accept the idea of having a soulmate was a matter worth considering. At great depth, with some strawberry shortcake at three in the morning. Very little was known about the whole process and if you were to analyze it scientifically, what was known could easily be called into.

What was known was this: Once a person turned sixteen, the name of their supposed, “soulmate” appeared somewhere on their body in the middle of the night. Sometimes this brand would change or move according to the soulmate’s identity, or the person’s relationship with their soulmate. If your soulmate died, the mark would grey and fade. However, luckily for the widower, a person could have more than one soulmate throughout their lifetime, which meant a new mark may appear. 

Hardly a conventional means of encouraging humans to procreate. 

Many studies have been done on this topic. Most of them turned out to be frustratingly fruitless. It was almost as though what little evidence existed had been laid out specifically so people would assume that there was an active higher power, or destiny, or fate, simply so they could remain content with the excuse that it could not be explained.

L supposed he couldn’t rule out that “higher power” possibility quite yet. Not until those studies started finding something. Whatever improbable possibility remained could and must be the truth, and so on.

Occasionally L would go through an obsessive phase where he would gather everything he knew about soulmate selection—All the files, all the anomalies, every single piece of pertinent information. Then he would sit and stare and bite his thumb until Watari talked him out of it. _This_ was the biggest unsolved case since evolved humans started rubbing grey cells together with the intent of using reason. It was _maddening._

On the topic of soulmates, when L wasn’t nagging about the process he was worried about the product. He would never admit to worrying, should you ask him. Most worries ordinary people had about their soulmate were along the lines of, “What if they don’t like me,” “What if they’re in a relationship when I meet them,” “What if they don’t care for this or that or—“ What if, what if, what if. Such worries seemed foolish to contemplate in the detective’s mind. It was a well-known statistic that soulmate matches worked without a hitch 95% of the time, excluding unusual circumstances such as a death, an amputated limb, altering the mark with an ordinary tattoo, etc.

But the thought that somewhere out there a person existed who might be able to see right through him, who could be used against him; that someone could muddle his logic in favor of irrational emotion, that there was someone who could become—and likely was—destined to be his greatest weakness…

That didn’t sit right with him.

No indeed. No matter how he sat, spine straight or slouched or twisted in a question mark, the notion didn’t sit right with L at all.

DN

In Light Yagami’s class, it seemed everyone and their grandmother was obsessed with their soulmate.

Not Light. He had loftier, more sophisticated priorities than matters mundane enough to ensnare the attention span of the pubescent masses.

…But not many.

It was just that everything else was so… So _tedious._ And if it wasn’t tedious, it was _awful._ And then even the awful became tedious and somewhere between seventeen and philosophizing about everything—because he was an unrecognized genius with too much time, and too much brain and idle ‘extra-hard’ puzzle books had stopped challenging him when he was five—he started to question the point of it all. 

So, yes, if charged with imagining who the name on his wrist was like in person… he was a little guilty.

Read: Exceptionally guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt.

The sky outside his classroom window seemed to invite imagination with a polite and earnest nature, whether it be garbed in steel grey, hazy orange, or a rare blue. It would be rude to refuse. Especially on the occasions where it had expended the effort of donning its finest shade of azure just for Light.

He knew that it was stupid to imagine because then he would hope, and then his hopes would be let down and it would be a bad start to whatever relationship he and his soulmate were supposed to share. But the whole thing about a soulmate was they weren’t supposed to be what you hoped for. They were supposed to be _better_. By no means perfect as a person, but perfect for _you_.

Light tried to imagine what was perfect for him. He listed off all the usual traits the usual people desired in their soulmate. Attractive, funny, charming, dedicated, understanding. But he found that he didn’t much care about any of these traits but one: Intelligent. Light couldn’t _stand_ people who didn’t think on his level. Most days he found it within himself to be generous; he made peace with the fact that the world was, by comparison, filled with unmitigated idiots. But there were days when Light despised them altogether, wanted to avoid all interaction with them, to abjure every smidgen of the taint that was their incompetence.

He could tolerate—and maybe if this soulmate thing worked the way it was supposed to—learn to love a lot of things. But it was a necessity that whoever Lawliet was, she possessed an above-standard margin of intelligence. Genius, preferably. 

Light did think of his soulmate as a girl. He made that assumption because it never occurred to him that they could be anything else. However, if he had stopped to question whether being a girl was a required trait, he would have found that it was no more required than a pretty face so long as there was a brain behind it. He would realize that assuming his soulmate was a girl was a hasty miscalculation.

But he did not consider this. Thus, Light scoured all the top-performing academies worldwide, plus their graduates from the past five years, searching the lists for girls by the name of L. Lawliet.

He didn’t find anything for obvious reasons. But that was all right. Light would be disappointed if it was that easy. The search for his soulmate was a puzzle that doubled as a loyal companion. He fell back on it to stave off boredom, abhorrence, and self-imposed queries about whether the world—whether everything—was worth it. 

You know, the usual teenage angst.

DN

Something was wrong with L’s soulmate.

The detective didn’t often go outside, but if a legion of ants were going to steal from his sugar bowl, the least he could do was investigate. He lay on his belly in the grass, examining the small mound where the dirt met the sidewalk. Several larger ants guarded the mound. L didn’t bother them, and they extended the same courtesy. He watched as the small lumps of dissected sugar cubes disappeared into the earth, whisked away on an insectoid assembly line.

Then he happened to glance at his wrist and found that the kanji symbols he’d worn for years no longer circled the bony joint. They had been replaced by four letters. Four letters in harsh capitols slashed across the skin. These letters were a shackle, a proclamation, or some equally dread omen.

K I R A

On second thought, L supposed that they could also spell AKIR, RAKI, or IRAK, but given the placement of the letters, KIRA seemed most likely. Also… it was a bit of a hunch. A bit of something that couldn’t be explained, unless L wanted to stop and try to deeply psychoanalyze himself, but he’d much rather research other developments.

So he did. Later, L would ask Watari if he had heard of the soulmark’s name changing, and whether it meant the soulmate’s name had changed too, or if you’d somehow transferred to a completely different soulmate. Watari was understandably dumbfounded. Some database digging found a few rare instances of the former, but this was not enough to abdicate the mentor’s internalized worry.

Later this would be discovered, but right now, halfway across the world from a certain mound of glucose-thieving ants, a student had just picked up a black notebook.

DN

It took Light a while to realize his soul-mark had moved. He was a bit too occupied by the seemingly elaborate prank the notebook presented to notice that, as he wrote down the first name, the mark shifted across his hand like liquid mercury. That mark had become such a fixed part of his body Light took its presence for granted. He was performing his justice, cleansing the world, writing with fervor. The sky wore pitch velvet and played coy about his curtains, reassuring Light of her approval with the protection night freely offers secret happenings. But something seemed… off. Nothing about what he was doing, of course, this was glorious, an experience near spiritual. But what he was seeing was just… off.

Light stared at the notebook of names, the pen, and his hand. There was a word missing. A very important word.

He dropped the pen. Lawliet was gone. All that remained was a large bold L on the back of his hand. It was barely visible when he rotated his wrist to write.

 _Why?_ Why had his relationship with his soulmate changed drastically enough to warrant a shift in mark placement? Light hadn’t even met her yet! Why wasn’t he permitted to see the proof of his other half’s existence when he wrote? While he worked to scrape the rot and filth from this world? Was she unworthy? Was _he_ unworthy? No, preposterous. And why was there only one letter now? It wasn’t as though erasing the word Lawliet would make Light forget it, he’d long since memorized that cascade of syllables, elegant and foreign. So why change it? Light _liked_ his soulmate’s name. Being reduced to a single letter felt like he was being cheated, or degraded, or…

He didn’t like it.

He _loathed_ it.

Was this a hint? A warning that he might try to murder his soulmate if he knew her full name and what she looked like? Light was indignant that anyone or anything would presume so. Who would be dumb enough to kill their soulmate? Did Light look like the kind of person who would cut down what he was sure would become the second-most dear thing to him? (Second only to his work, which was more important than any singular individual.)

Unless, of course, Lawliet disagreed with what he was doing, in which case it would make perfect sense-

No, stop. That was ridiculous. Of course his soulmate would support him. What kind of soulmate would she be otherwise? How could they be together if she was against him, against his new world? A world without fear, a world worthy of the one most beloved by that pristine world’s God?

But since whatever controls such things has neither a name nor face, Light could only resolve to learn to live with it and never forget what had been taken. Lawliet. Out of spite, Light doodled the word over and over on scrap paper, printer paper, heavy cardstock, in every variation imaginable. He committed it to muscle memory so thoroughly that sometimes if he wrote his name in English, he would accidentally write an A instead of an I after the first letter.

He destroyed it all afterward, of course. That name was his. Purging it from his body could _never_ change that.

DN

It wasn’t until Light saw the big gothic L pasted across his television that he knew. 

He knew he was listening to his soulmate on the other side of that screen, accusing him of murder, of _evil_ , blaspheming his righteous work.

He knew something close to betrayal. 

Which was stupid, because stupid _stupid_ Light he had _known_ that assuming anything about his soulmate could lead to disappointment, and he did it anyway. He’d assumed L would side with him but then she – no, he, that much could still be detected through the voice distortion – did just the opposite. L _condemned_ him. L was going to sentence him to death.

L probably didn’t even know who he was hunting down. (How could he? If he was aware that his soulmate was Kira, and he knew both Kira’s true name and his approximate location Light was as good as dead. Since failing so soon was not an option, Light _had_ to believe that wasn’t the case.)

But Light knew. He knew in a moment of fury that something must have gone wrong. This couldn’t be his soulmate. This imposter wasn't his destined one. Every preconceived notion Light possessed regarding soulmates abjured the notion.

And he knew L’s full name.

L. Lawliet. Lawliet was nothing like he was _supposed to be_. Lawliet was just L.

He knew it wouldn’t work, but that didn’t matter. He carved over his previous victim’s name with a viciousness that almost tore the paper. L. Lawliet. Damnable Lawliet _cursed_ Lawliet, that name Light knew as well as his own.

Of course, it didn’t work. He knew it wouldn’t.

Which was ultimately a good thing, because once his rage had abated Light was glad it hadn’t. Not out of any emotional obligation Light held towards L, but because he looked forward to this game of wit and caution about to take place. Whether L was his soulmate or not was now an irrelevant fact. All that mattered was who would win. And Kira planned to ensure his absolute victory.

Yes, as of now, Yagami Light knew lots of things.

Yet there was a small part of him, easily squashed by the deafening war cries of hubris and egomania, which felt as though perhaps he knew nothing at all.


	2. Meeting

The fact that his soulmate had recently turned into the world’s worst (or best, depending on how you looked at it) serial killer was more than a bit concerning.

L was aware that he should be preparing for what would happen when (or if—no, when, of course when, anything else wasn’t permitted) he won. The ethically correct thing would be to hand Kira over to the authorities with a recommend a death penalty.

But see, L was prone to fits of selfishness and immaturity. He didn’t _want_ to kill his soulmate if he could help it. The thing that gave him hope, (so fickle, so foolish, so _human_ ) was how his soulmate’s name had once been Light Yagami.

Yes, he knew it was Light now, not Moon. A quick look into Chief Yagami’s family members had led L directly to his quarry. There had been a slight error in translation.

But since Light had indeed once been Light, and Kira was a recent development, L allowed himself a smidgen of hope that he could find a way to reverse this. _That_ was what winning would truly mean to him: To not just catch the criminal (because he’d already done that, it would just be cheating to arrest him now) but to discover his method of murder and then reform him.

So, L would go through the motions. He could afford to stall for a while. He would take the long, round-about way to Light, chasing leads and stray pieces of evidence. Once he re-found him in the eyes of the Japanese Police and Interpol, the real game would begin.

L was sure he could use his status as soulmate to his advantage, somehow. But it would be risky. And he was unsure of how to proceed. Showing his face to Light meant an 86% chance of death, and that was factoring a generous amount of faith into his ability to have things like empathy, and mercy. Things Kira was _not_ displaying. The goal was to convince Light to see the error of his ways without actually arresting him, without appearing in person (not until that percentage dramatically decreased), and without dying in the process.

This would be an exceptionally challenging case.

In the meantime, every death would weigh heavily on L’s already stooped shoulders. Every heart that ceased to beat was one that could have continued if he’d chosen to act. Every family member’s grief, every innocent victim wrongly acquitted, every casualty of Kira’s wrath would be, in part, his fault.

L tried to remind himself that this wasn't a rational way to see the issue. Kira was the one accountable for these deaths, and if he wasn’t there in the first place L wouldn’t be put in this position between choosing the right course of action and his own selfish wishes—

God damn it.

DN

Light started wearing gloves everywhere he could, and shirts or sweaters with extra-long sleeves that covered his hands.

It was inconvenient, but it wouldn’t do to have someone see the big bold **L** on the back of his hand and connect the dots. Especially his father.

DN

L had to _do something_ _!_ He knew full well who Kira was, and it would take one phone call to have him arrested. There was no guarantee enough evidence would be found to try and prosecute him but if L took that gamble and it paid off, the murders would stop. And wasn’t the preservation of life supposed to be what mattered most?

…Perhaps Yagami senior’s ethics were rubbing off on him too much.

Still, it bothered L. He felt that allowing this mock definition of justice to flaunt itself to the world was an act of moral negligence. The disapproving looks Watari gave him only reinforced this notion. But…

But insert every weak, flimsy excuse that ultimately equates to nothing but a lack of resolve here.

Maybe L could do something to distract Kira? Something that would break his concentration, and if it worked, might indirectly save just a few…

DN

Light was using both his computer and his television to watch the news. All the more criminals to kill, my dear. However, his happy little murder spree was rudely interrupted by a notification popping up seemingly out of nowhere.

**Invitation to play:**

**Accept/Decline**

Light would have immediately closed the tab and started checking his computer for viruses if it wasn’t for the large gothic **L** watermarked in the background.

**Accept**

Even if this was a test to discover if Light was Kira (Why him?! Did L suspect him already?! He’d been so careful! How had L gotten this IP address, what was this program doing to the machine? Could he be sure it was L? He should turn off his camera and sound, just in case.), how could he refuse?

Upon clicking accept, the tab switched to display a variety of virtual board games. Chess, Backgammon, Go, several card games, a vast collection from different eras and countries. Some depended on an element of luck, others wholly on strategy.

Light stared at the screen for a few cautious minutes, waiting. When nothing happened, he selected chess.

An impressively well-rendered chess board popped up. Across the board, a white knight made the opening move.

Kira smiled. He still hadn't figured out just what this little arcade was for (Psychological profiling? Familiarizing competitive strategies? Both of those were things Light could do through this exchange as well, so where was L’s advantage? Unless he was playing against a program instead of L himself—), and he would have to be exceptionally careful. But… challenge accepted.

DN

Since the virtual arcade launched, Kira’s number of victims had decreased by a rough average of 8.2% over the past week and was still sinking. L’s plan to simply dominate as much of Light’s free time as possible, time typically used for plotting murders, seemed to be working. While 8.2% wasn’t a very high number, it was still an improvement.

Eventually, the police would catch on, and they would expect L to pass out some vaguely viable explanation. Until then, L would call Operation Distract Kira a success in-progress, give himself a mental pat on the back, and eat an extra eclair for his trouble.

DN

Light had concocted a plan, a foolproof plan, to get the name of whoever was following him. However, this plan involved going on a date.

Now under normal circumstances, landing a date would be easy for someone like Light. Unfortunately, it seemed like soulmarks were dead set on screwing up his life in every way possible.

“Oh I’m sorry Light-kun, but I wouldn’t want to be disloyal to my soulmate!”

“I would LOVE to Light-senpai, but you see, I just got my soulmark last month and-”

“I just want to wait for my soulmate is all, you know? That way he really will be my one and only. Isn’t that _romantic_?”

“Thanks sooooo much for understanding, Light!!!~ You know I would say yes in an instant if you were my soulmate. Heehee, if only you WERE my soulmate, ohmygosh, I would loooove to be your girlfriend!~ Oh well, I’m sure I’ll be happy later, once I meet him. Hey, you don’t happen to know anyone who goes by the name—“

God. Fucking. DAMN IT!!!

Maybe whatever Powers That Be were onto something, giving him a male soulmate. (Supposedly. Light was still standing by his theory that this was all a mistake.) All the girls he knew were acting like ditsy, mawkish morons. How the hell could you be disloyal to your soulmate if you hadn’t even MET HIM YET?!

He did eventually find a girl willing to spend the day with him, even though they weren’t ‘the perfect match’. But it was MUCH harder than it should have been.

DN

Later that evening, Light returned to his computer ready, his blood cells practically singing their triumph. L chose the game this time, but he would soon regret it. A quarter of an hour in, with only two cards left in his hand, Light couldn’t possibly lose.

Two minutes and an impossible combo later, the game was completed, and Light held no less than eleven brightly colored virtual UNO cards.

“ _CURSE you L!!!”_ he shrieked, slamming his hands onto his desk with frustration. How the HELL had the bastard managed to beat him so soundly at a computerized game of UNO!?!?

DN

_Riiing_

_Click_

“Hello?”

“Is this Raye Penber?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“I am L.” Raye Penber held the phone away from his face and stared at it with shock. An unknown caller with a heavily distorted voice was contacting him, claiming to be L. There wasn’t exactly protocol for this.

“Who is it?” Naomi asked as she approached carrying two cups of tea and a cheerful smile.

“This guy says he’s L,” he mouthed as quietly as he could. Her smile immediately hardened into something grim.

"Let me speak to him," she commanded, holding out her hand for the phone. “This is Naomi Misora, who’s speaking?”

“Hello, Naomi Misora. You know perfectly well who I am.”

“Really? Tell me something only L would know.” There was the faintest laugh from the other end. Naomi hadn’t dulled a bit.

“During the case we solved together, the first and only mistake Rue Ryuzaki made was revealing that he knew you know capoeira.” Naomi smiled.

“It is you.” L wanted to know if Raye Penber had revealed his identity to Light Yagami. Naomi looked to Raye. He confirmed that he had, she relayed this information to L, and Raye received an email from his superior assigning him to a different suspect within five minutes. “Thank you for keeping an eye on my fiancé," Naomi told him. "That mistake might have cost him his life."

"Indeed it could have."

"Go catch that murdering bastard, L. If anyone can do it, it's you." The detective felt utterly drained when he got off the phone.

DN

When L called the first meeting for the reduced task force at his hotel room, he made sure his soulmark was covered with tight linen bandages. Very tight. Although, since L was the kind of person who considered socks too restrictive, this wasn’t saying much. The point was that they were tight (objectively speaking), and annoying, and they lowered his cognitive faculties by approximately 0.103%, which was NOT an insignificant number considering the worth of what he was losing.

While it might be amusing to see the rest of the team’s reactions if his shirt sleeve slipped and they all saw that his soulmate was Kira, such a risk was completely out of the question. Plus, they would demand an explanation, and then get all suspicious and accusatory when he didn’t provide it.

This way all anyone would think was that he had an injury, which was overall more acceptable than having a serial killer soulmate.

DN

Scrabble was a game of vexation, to the point where the winner didn’t even matter anymore. The real victory would lie in who could insult, pester, or interrogate the other the best.

Occupation, Light would ask.

Rabbit, came the reply. Translation: It should be obvious so I’m not going to dignify this with a real response.

Unless his job somehow really did involve rabbits.

Hobbies.

Collecting.

Accumulation. “Collecting or accumulating what?” was the intended query.

Sugar. _Which did not make any fucking sense because you_ cannot collect _SUGAR GRANULES!!!_

Well, conceivably you could. You could collect different brands of sugar. Or different food items containing sugar in general.

But that was weird, and it was much more likely that L was just screwing with him.

Still. Light didn’t let go of that tiny link, even if he didn’t understand the context. Sugar and L. One could only presume that L liked sugar. _If only it were as simple as luring this infuriating detective out of hiding with a large pile of gumdrops_ _,_ Light thought, fantasizing, for just a moment of constructing a gumdrop mountain in the middle of a large city square, then lying in wait by his baited trap.

He would probably catch nothing but a bunch of hyperactive kids.

Then again, Light couldn’t presume anything. Because again, L was probably just screwing with him.

Student, L asked.

Genius, Light said, neither confirming nor denying this guess while still asserting his impressive intellectual abilities.

Egotistical. Damn you too L. Damn your--

Impudent,

Arrogant,--sickeningly sweet-and-rabbit ( _Rabbit???)_ minded self.

Vapid, was the retaliatory jab.

Light did concede that L managed to pull off some spectacular stunts on the scrabble board. Like the time he spelled out, “No I did not know that Shinigami love apples.” over a single game. (Which he lost.) Then followed it up with, “May I ask if Kiras love apples as well?” (Which he won.) While finding a way to work Shinigami into the game was impressive, Light still replied with,

Thumb.

Down.

Or: Go to _hell_.

L: Childish

Light: Hypocrite

L: Touche

Touché indeed. They were both marvelously self-centered, and dazzlingly foolish, and why was Light even participating in this ruse of a conversation anymore?!

He couldn’t stay away. Every evening Light turned on his computer and smiled when the invitation to play popped up. He spent his time studying, spreading justice, and sparring with the greatest adversary he had ever faced. But mostly sparring.

L wasn’t rotten. And he wasn’t boring. The detective’s mind was bright and sharp as a blade, but not without a few chips. L simultaneously complemented and contrasted with Light, and Kira (Kira-Light), so harshly, so seamlessly, that Light was starting to entertain the possibility that they maybe _were_ meant to be soulmates. Just the _teensiest_ of bits.

It would be a pity when the time came to kill him.

DN

Kira was taunting him.

It wasn’t the porn that was the issue. That was just a convenient excuse. Completely understandable, and to be expected. No, it was his hand. Light was wearing a glove. Just one glove. Indoors. Light was aware that L might be watching, and he was using that hand exclusively to handle the magazine.

It wasn’t as though that was his dominant hand. Five minutes of observation followed by confirmation from Soichiro Yagami confirmed that Light was ambidextrous. So he had absolutely no reason to use _that specific hand_ , except to taunt L.

Some might assume that the teen was being exceptionally paranoid and didn’t want to leave his fingerprints all over raunchy magazines. However, if he was trying to exhibit _ordinary_ teenage behavior he should go without the glove, or at the very least wear two of them. L silently seethed at Light. The arrogant bastard, unable to let the opportunity to taunt his opponent go even now, as he walked the fine line between acquittal and discovery.

It was almost admirable, how he found a way to deliver the cheeky statement: Dearest L, Fuck You, despite the circumstances. L would have to make sure to return the sentiment tenfold through various annoyances if he ever had the chance.

Wearing a signal glove indoors was something even Light’s father couldn’t miss.

“That’s the hand that his soulmark is on,” the detective commented, once he’d gotten past the shock of discovering his pious and upright son perusing magazines of busty bikini-clad models. “I didn’t know he’d started hiding it.”

“Hmm.” L made the appropriate noncommittal noise, hoping Soichiro would let it go. Unfortunately, he had no such luck.

“It was something that used the English alphabet, I remember. Started with an L. Almost like… Lollypop? But not that, of course, what parents in their right mind would name their child after a candy?”

“I beg to disagree, Yagami-san. Sorbet has its appeal.”

“Why can’t I remember…?” _Please change the subject, please, please change the subject Yagami-san, talk about how Sorbet is a terrible name_ — “Lawliet, that’s it! It was L. Lawlie-” _Don’t react_ , L thought, as the neurons clicked, and a connection was formed. Soichiro openly stared at L with a muted expression, but when you looked past the muteness one could identify a diluted mixture of shock, horror, and flat-out disbelief. No, Soichrio’s eyes read, that which had just been thought was not in the least bit feasible. Not in this reality.

In the reflection of the screen, L shared a glance with Watari whose eyebrows were drawn in grim concern.

“Lawliet? That’s a rather uncommon feminine name originating from France to the best of my knowledge.” Light’s father took it, hook line and sinker, with palatable relief.

“Really? Hm. Perhaps Light should learn the language if his soulmate has French origins.”

“Yes, perhaps.” So long as Soichiro didn’t learn any himself because he would quickly discover that Lawliet was not, in fact, a French name, and even if it theoretically was, most French words ending with a “t” were masculine. The feminine form of Lawliet would instead be Lawliette, which was two letters more than what was written on Yagami Jr.’s hand.

But what Soichiro didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

DN

**Accept**

While Scrabble Speak was admittedly an inefficient form of communication, Light was still surprised that L would be bold enough to install a chat function.

 **L:** Good evening, Kira-kun.

…Well, shit.

It took Light a solid minute to come up with an adequately inconspicuous response, just in case this was a test. (It was probably a test.)

 **KIRA:** What makes you assume I’m Kira?

And—Oh! The bastard had set his name as Kira as well. Light would have to hack that later, try and pick something that would set L off the trail… Until the detective sent a reply that dashed any hopes Light might have had that he was even following a trail anymore. Suddenly L had caught up, was tapping Light on the shoulder before making a polite request to come quietly as Light’s hands were cuffed behind his back. The trail was gone, completed. The trail had burned away while Light was too busy looking ahead at the sunrise.

 **L:** The name around my wrist would indicate such.

…Shit.

_Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit._

It was game over. No, it wasn’t even that. There had never been a fucking game. _Lawliet_ had known all along. His soulmate had all the evidence he needed to make Light the _only_ suspect in his investigation. Light’s denial aside, soulmarks have never been proven false with a hundred percent certainty and they were considered valid evidence in court. All L had to do was prove that his soulmark had once read Light Yagami, and it now read Kira.

Unless he was lying.

 **KIRA:** If so, why am I still free?

 **L:** Surely Kira can figure that out on his own.

He was lying? Unlikely. Light’s mark's transforming lent credibility to the detective’s claims. Maybe the mark alone wasn’t enough evidence? Or he wanted to figure out _how_ Kira killed. Was L was giving him a free pass because of some misguided sentimentality? Or maybe he still wasn’t certain. Or he was careless. Or he didn’t care.  
Whatever the reason, Light was glad for the second chance. He would have to be very, _very_ careful not to give his nemesis anything that could be used as evidence, with his identity compromised. He would have to assume that this stream was being saved to files, his father already knew, and he was being closely monitored.

That was alright. Light could work under these conditions.

L was still typing:

 **L:** I don’t suppose you would entertain the possibility of ceasing to dispense your version of justice?

_In your dreams, L._

**L:** I believe it could be beneficial to you, and many others, if Kira were to simply disappear.

Oh.

_Oh._

So it _was_ sentimentality. The _fool!_ L was willing to let him off scot-free just because they were soulmates!?

Light could use this.

Light _would_ use this, ruthlessly.

But L wasn’t just another star-struck girl from school to charm. Light would have to do things carefully, _carefully…_

 **KIRA:** Would L disappear too?

 **L:** For a time, yes.

 **KIRA:** Then Kira must refuse your offer. I like our games.

Unhinged yet charismatic, just what L expected. …And probably very good adjectives to describe Light himself, not just the persona of Kira he was projecting. However, Light chose to ignore that for now, because he was tangling a snare, and he’d just cast the first thread.

 **L:** Then by all means, Kira-kun, let us play.

 _Yes, let us play L. Whether it be love or war, chess or checkers, we shall dance and deceive and continue this farce. But woe betide you the day that I win_ _._ This was the message hidden in a glint behind fringed eyes, intent in an unnatural grin tucked away as a wallflower hides behind a pillar, the whole face lit with shadows and sharp blue light while elsewhere, the damned still perished.

Munching on an apple in the corner, Ryuk quietly pondered if Light’s dramatics would be the death of him. The human certainly spewed enough theatrical bullshit and had a malicious laugh characteristic of a villain about to be laid low.


	3. Mask

The task force team came in pairs, as always. But today they found a moon-faced creature hunched over the sweet bowl, languishing morose.

“…Why is he wearing a mask?” Matsuda whispered to the chief. The chief discreetly kicked his ankle.

 _“Don’t mention it.”_ This may be another one of L’s quirks, and Soichiro didn’t want his fellow officer to unintentionally offend the detective with his habit for tactlessly saying whatever he thought. The ceramic owl turned their way, eyes big and pale, observing.

“Matsuda-san, Yagami-san. Please come sit.” The detectives came and sat amongst the rest of the task force. L turned his head to an angle of intrigue and reached out to pluck a butterscotch from the bowl, slender fingers dangling. Then he remembered his mouth was covered and settled back, annoyance in his posture.

“It has come to my attention that there is a ninety-eight-point-nine percent possibility Kira knows my true name.” This announcement drew the expected chorus of surprised, angry, and fearful noises. ‘How!?’ was the most frequent question. “This is through no fault or error on your part, but an oversight in Kira’s abilities on mine. I can assure you that all probabilities regarding the danger you and your families are exposed to remain the same.” Which meant they were still extraordinarily high, but the task force members didn’t need to know that. “With my name compromised, my face is the only thing that stands between me and death. As such, I will be wearing this mask from now on.” The difficult question came again, courtesy of Aizawa. How had Kira learned L’s name?

There was still a fundamental issue of trust between L and the task force. One that would only become more of an issue if L started covering his face all the time. They wanted honesty, and L was aware that if Light Yagami managed to reveal who L's soulmate was (without implicating himself, for course), they might turn against him. With everyone else too scared to fight back, L couldn't afford to lose these men.

He could show them. But that would lead to the inevitable question: Did L know Kira's true name? And then the whole ruse was up. So, L had no choice but to brush Aizawa off, let the question fester, and mislead them on to a new topic until he dropped another bombshell:

"Yagami-san, if it is alright with you, I would like your son to join our investigation."

DN

The Sakura TV debacle was an unmitigated fucking disaster.

L was multitasking, pretending to review the FBI reports in search of “leads,” (what was the point if he knew there wouldn’t be any?) while playing a game of Go with Kira. Then Watari called and told him to change the channel, and it all fell apart from there. Ukita, the _fool_ , rushed to the TV station and got himself killed right there in front of a news crew. L’s focus was jumping between six different TV screens and the Go board, trying to analyze and predict all the real-world causalities while maintaining the geometric patterns formed by light and dark dots in his mind. When Aizawa got up to chase after Ukita and L started reasoning with him not to throw his life away, the curly-haired man noticed the Go board and exploded.

“What the hell are you doing playing a computer game at a time like this!?!”

“This is an extremely _important_ computer game,” L snapped at him. And it was. Who knew how many lives were at stake if he didn’t keep Kira distracted? When had L’s life turned into intellectually babysitting a psychopath? Was this even the same Kira? Doubtful, when he took a moment to pause all his rampant thoughts, but if it was then he didn’t need a name, perhaps he’d _never_ needed a name--

An armored bus slammed into the front of the TV station. The board surrendered to a cascade of white.

KIRA: You seem distracted, L

KIRA: Have you seen what’s happening on TV?

 _Damn_ him.

DN

A few days later, Light got a call from his father.

“L is saying he wants your help with the investigation.” Light didn’t make his Father suffer trying to come up with an appropriate response to the obvious question of _why_. There wasn’t much Soichiro could say other than some bullshit excuse about how Light was a genius with an interest in the case, and they didn’t have enough people willing to work it, so now L was willing to get help from teenagers during a very dangerous investigation.

Either way, it was clear Light’s father knew he was a suspect. How else would L have convinced them all?

So, Light didn’t ask any questions. He agreed not to tell his mother or Sayu and memorized the address of their location.

The lobby of the hotel was fancy, sleek and modern. A man Light vaguely recognized as one of his father’s colleagues— _Matsuda_ came to mind after a few more seconds of thought—came to escort him upstairs.

In the elevator, Light realized that he was about to meet L. Not just his infuriating enemy, but the L behind the snarky words on his screen every night. The L who was clever with checkers and lucky at Solitaire. A part of Light was pleased. Light examined this part, judged it too carelessly positive, and crushed it.

The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor. Matsuda led him down the hall and used his keycard to unlock the door. They entered a spacious room with clean carpets and tasteful lamps. Several men in suits were present, including his father, all of them cops.

And there, perched on a yellow and cream baroque armchair, was someone who could only be L.

He wore ill-fitting clothes. His feet were bare; his toes curled, uncurled, and otherwise fidgeted with unusual frequency. He had bandages around his wrists, an unkempt mop of shaggy dark hair, and his face was concealed by a pale owl mask, elegant in its simplicity.

Light had predicted that such precautions would be taken, but he was still irrationally irked. Some porcelain a little bit smaller and thicker than a dinner plate was all that stood between Kira and a world of his making.

Now, to devise a plan for getting that mask off.

Light absently wondered what L’s eyes were like. The eyes of the mask were smooth and blank. Light wasn’t even sure L could see out of them.

There were introductions all around, and the importance of false names and the mask was explained. L wanted them all to call him Ryuzaki. _Quaint,_ Light thought. _But useless._ Light’s father was going by Asahi, so it was decided that Light’s false name would be Light Asahi.

“But I will call you Light-kun here,” L said. Light’s face never faltered from a soft, cordial smile the whole meeting, while inside his blood pounded with something that could only be rage.

DN

They left two by two as was apparently custom to avoid suspicion. Light was once again paired with Matsuda. In the elevator, he asked the detective if he had ever seen L’s face.

“Well yeah! We all saw L’s face before he started wearing that mask. He wasn’t as scared back then, I think. None of us were.” This was an interesting thought: Was L scared? Why wouldn’t he be? He faced death. Unless he didn’t fear death. What did L fear, failure? Infamy? Light filed these thoughts away for further consideration.

“What are his eyes like?” The doors dinged open. Matsuda, the fool, didn’t even look suspicious. As they walked towards the entrance, he happily supplied an answer.

“Big and dark, kind of creepy. They've got massive shadows under them; I don’t think any of us have ever seen him sleep. They’re intense too, I swear that he can figure out everything about me just by staring at me hard enough. He probably has, like, data-collecting x-ray vision. Sometimes they’re wise, a lot older than he is. He’s probably seen lots of terrible things. And sometimes... usually when he’s happy about something... they kind of remind me of a panda.” Light blinked.

“A panda?” He imagined panda eyes under the owl mask, panda eyes peering at a screen.

“Yeah, a panda! Almost cute, if the rest of him wasn’t always such a mess.” At this, Matsuda opened his car door and prepared to depart. “See you tomorrow Light-kun!” Light echoed the sentiment but he was distracted, imagining porcupine hair and panda eyes.

DN

Light arrived back home late that night mentally and emotionally exhausted. The source of his exhaustion was his constant hyper-vigilance, maintained for hours or maybe weeks. In L’s presence he had to be aware of everything he was doing, saying, and thinking, all while observing everyone else’s actions. There had been a lot of valuable information gained though. There were tests too, tests he may or may not have passed. At the very least, one way or another, this copycat Kira would be getting his message. Light thought of the, “But you can kill L,” he’d included in the script.

He opened his computer. 

KIRA: Why?

He waited for a response.

L: Please specify.

KIRA: You know what I mean.

L: Say it anyway.

UGH, this man was impossible...

KIRA: Why risk letting me get this close? Aside from the obvious.

The obvious being raising the stakes, waiting for one of them to slip.

L: Is this a confession?

KIRA: Hardly. Messages alone don’t hold up as evidence, there’s no way to prove the person typing this is who you think it is in a courtroom.

Light planned to delete it all too. He had the virus stowed away in his files ready to be activated in an emergency. Every word and every move of every game. Even if L was saving it all on his end, they wouldn’t find a single trace of evidence on Light’s computer.

L: I am sure you’re aware of the saying: Know thy enemy, keep him close, etc.

KIRA: That’s not an answer.

L: It’s not? What a pity. I have the sudden insatiable urge to stop chatting about abstract questions which may or may not have an answer and play chess instead.

Light resisted the urge to smash his forehead against the keyboard.

Kira: Alright, fine! I’ll figure it out on my own.

Light proceeded to put everything he had into beating L, at least this time, in this one small thing.

The game ended in a draw.

DN

The strategy came to him in a dream.

In it, Matsuda’s words were echoing in his head as Light wrote down his own father’s name and the details for his demise.

_Soichiro Yagami_

_At 11:30 pm, he picks up a piece of the Death Note left in his desk drawer at home and writes down, “L. Lawliet,” while visualizing the man he knows to be leading the Kira investigation under the pseudonym Ryuzaki. He writes down the true names of every other person he knows to be working on the Kira Case. He writes that they will all die of a heart attack at midnight._

Light bolted awake clutching his chest. Visions of shade falling over his father’s eyes swum in his head.

He had it. A way to win. A way to kill L.

…But at what cost?

Light knew his father was a good man. The kind of man he’d admired all his life, someone who’d inspired his own beliefs. His father and the rest of the Kira task force was guilty of nothing more than trying to do what they believed was right.

It would be so easy to justify it the same way he’d justified Lind. L. Taylor. But… This was different. This was his _father_ , who he knew, who Sayu and his Mother would miss. Light’s justice would no longer be perfect if he soiled it with innocent lives and then what would he have? A broken, hypocritical system that did more harm than good.

No. He decided that he would save this strategy as a last resort. If it ever came down to saving himself and allowing Kira’s legacy to continue or showing mercy and getting caught, he would do it. The world had already shown that it would accept sullied justice over none. At least Kira was efficient.

DN

As it turned out, the second Kira was faster than all of them.

Misa Amane had a soulmark around the side of her neck that read “KIRA.” On a day-to-day basis, she hid her mark with a choker. She removed it when Light brought her up to his room.

Misa’s soulmate has always been Kira. She had been so excited when rumors of Kira first started seeping through the cracks of society because she knew. She knew that her soulmate wasn’t just some person named Kira, her soulmate was _this_ Kira. K-I-R-A. Kira the God, Kira the avenger, Kira, who would save everyone good and damn those not worthy of redemption.

Ryuk found her sob-story absolutely hilarious.

“You humans and your soul marks...” he’d chuckled while Misa was still unable to detect his presence. “It’s no wonder you hate ‘em Light, they've caused you nothing but trouble.”

Light was quite sure that he had never had a mark that read, “Misa Amane,” in his life. It had always just been Lawli—L. Just L. Thankfully, Misa hadn’t asked him to show her his mark.

Since he already knew L’s true name Misa’s Shinigami eyes were not as useful as she’d hoped they would be. But... he went along with it anyway. Because it was clear that she was besotted, devoted to him, and maybe not as stupid as he’d originally thought. She’d found him, after all, before every law enforcement agency in the world could. If nothing else she could take the fall, perish so he could continue if L ever got too close.

DN

One thing Light had failed to consider, in a rare lapse of peak analytical prowess, when he agreed to date Misa Amane was that she would be one of those people who didn’t try to hide her soul mark. _At all._ Even less so after Kira became the adopted name of a world-renown serial killer. He was clutching his head in despair five minutes after looking her up online. Light began debating whether it would be less damning to simply write down her name in the notebook after all, but— _Oh yeah right. Rem._ Fucking Shinigami...

Well, he would do damage control the best he could and emphatically hope that no one on the task force ever found out. Even though he _hated_ relying on nothing more substantial than hope.

 _Dear God,_ if L ever discovered this...

Why did the thought make Light feel so... strange?

He isolated the feeling (Shame? That didn’t make any sense.) and tucked it far, far away inside his mind.

It didn’t even resurface when he got to school and started flirting with Takada.

DN

The time signature of the message read six-fifty-two PM. It was now nearly midnight. Light hadn’t gotten around to reading it, having been delayed by Misa.

...He’d kissed her to deal with her childish demands and felt absolutely nothing. It was a useful manipulation tactic. Her eyes had gone glassy, her cheeks flushed pink. To any other guy, she might have been the cutest girl in the world at that moment. Or sexiest, depending on how low they let their eyes wander. But Light felt nothing except smug that she was so _easy_ to puppeteer. It had meant and would mean nothing.

He hoped L didn’t deduce too much from his absence.

L: I feel as though Light-kun should know I am giving up sweets for him.

...What?

KIRA: Why?

L: I find myself unable to eat while wearing the mask I am required to wear in your presence.

Seriously?

L: Doughnuts, cantaloupe, strawberries, those little candies they leave in hotel rooms. Not even tea with twelve sugars and cream in it. I am prohibited from satisfying my average glucose intake for several hours a day. It has caused undue suffering.

Light felt faintly sick at the thought of so much sugar. On the other hand, the weird hunch of an L+Sugar correlation he’d had was confirmed.

KIRA: And this is just too much to bear, is it?

L: It is a _travesty._

Light found himself laughing into his sleeve. He coughed and cleared his throat, but no one was there to observe this lapse in decorum. Ryuk was out flying and Sayu, for once, was not being a nosey little sister. Light wondered what L would think if he knew one of Kira’s daily challenges was not getting caught by a middle school girl who didn’t know how to knock.

KIRA: So, why Light-kun?

KIRA: Normally you call me Kira here and Light at the hotel.

L: Does it matter what I call you? Both refer to the same person.

Light supposed that it didn’t.

KIRA: Then, may I call you by the name no one else knows? Lawliet?

As soon as he hit send, the message was deleted. Fantastic. Of course, L would give himself that advantage while leaving Light unable to do the same.

L: No.

KIRA: Why not?

L: There are exactly three people in the world who know that name, you and I included.

L: I will not allow _any_ chance, no matter how small, of someone discovering my identity.

Sheesh, L really was a paranoid bastard.

KIRA: Alright then, answer me this. What was that thing you pulled at the hotel today?

L: Be more specific, please. I detest it when you’re intentionally vague.

Light grit his teeth and typed,

KIRA: The, “Light-kun is my first friend,” thing.

L: Light-kun is being very inquisitive tonight. Unnecessarily so.

KIRA: Are you trying to make me feel guilty?

KIRA: Because it won’t work.

L: Of course not. You are almost certainly a psychopath, and psychopaths do not feel remorse for their crimes. Trying to provoke such emotions would be an inefficient and naïve strategy.

L: I said it because I meant it.

...Fuuuuuuuuck. No. This was dumb. This wasn’t fair. L wasn’t supposed to be...

KIRA: How can you consider me a friend?

L: I understand if you do not think of me in the same way, Kira-kun. But how could I not?

L: You are my adversary, the greatest puzzle I will most likely never completely solve. You are my soulmate, my rival, and possibly the most brilliant person I have ever been fortunate enough to meet. Why shouldn’t I also consider you a friend?

Light was very glad Ryuk was out of the room. This, this _smooth motherfucker..._

It was the first time either of them had mentioned the word “soulmates,” since that very first conversation and even then, it had only been heavily implied. The S word had yet to be invoked but L just... dropped it like it was nothing. And now...

Light didn’t know what to do with this. It seemed uncomfortably close to some sort of confession. He rubbed at his hand, the mark under his glove felt like it was aching.

He thought that... maybe, he almost... _did_ want L, Ryuzaki, Lawliet, to be his soulmate. Not that he had much of a choice in the matter but... He began to contemplate the possibility that this, they, were destiny. It was a tragic fate. L and Kira were on a collision course that couldn’t be prevented, and they would impact with such explosive force that only one of them could make it out alive. Now that he’d gotten a taste of what it was like to work with L he thought that in another time, under different circumstances, maybe they could have been greater together than they ever were apart.

Light couldn’t figure out how best to respond to that.

He said:

KIRA: Let’s play Monopoly.

This time Light did bang his forehead against the keyboard, just once. Stupid, _stupid_! L says something like that, and you suggest _Monopoly!?_

L: I would like that, Light-kun.

L played as a Scottish terrier and Light picked the shoe, an action that for once, he put no thought into whatsoever. The game was intensely competitive as per usual. Who would be the ruler of the Monopoly board and the imaginary world it spawned for their amusement? L mocked him when he landed in jail, and Light was vindictively victorious when he drew a Get Out of Jail Free card one turn later. They played until it was nearly morning, until Light put his head down in his arms to rest for just a bit and instead, fell asleep.

DN

When Light woke the next morning, he realized something so obvious he was embarrassed he didn’t think of it while Misa was visiting. His thoughts had been scattered, thrown into mayhem by a man in a mask...

Kira didn’t need L’s face to kill the detective. He could make Rem do it.

Ryuk couldn’t care less about taking sides and he didn’t want this game to end. But Rem. Rem cared about Misa, Misa cared about Light. She thought they were soulmates. If Light showed Misa his mark and told her the only way for them to be together would be to convince Rem to kill L...

She would do it in a heartbeat. Hell, she might do it even if Light didn’t order her if she ever caught sight of his hand.

...He needed to think about this. Carefully. He needed to strategize. Time things out. Plot L’s demise and his own exoneration of all suspicion. A perfect crime...

Seemingly barely in control of his actions (it wasn’t Light who was doing this, it was a different Light, a different person, who pulled up the chat), he typed out a message to L.

KIRA: I want to see your face.

It took half an hour for him to get a reply.

L: I am aware. Thus, the mask.

KIRA: No, I mean

KIRA: Even if it wasn’t the only thing preventing me from eliminating you and starting my reign of perfect justice for a grateful world... I would still want to see it.

KIRA: Is that weird?

L: In case you weren’t aware, I am hardly a reliable source of defining what is “weird,” or not, Light-kun.

L: But I suppose I shall take this as a compliment.

L: Thank you, from the me in a different world where seeing my face wouldn’t guarantee my demise and the beginning of an age of global oppression.

DN

Light dreamed of a teaspoon clattering on the floor.

He dreamed that L fell forward, out of his chair. That he lay still when he hit the ground.

Light dreamed that he reached down with shaking fingers. He ran them through unkempt fringe, brushing it aside. He removed the mask from the corpse. Behind it, there was nothing.

Etched across Light’s skin were a hundred thousand _Lawliet’s._

Takada shook him awake before the teacher could notice. She gave him a lecture about proper sleep habits and how disrespectful falling asleep in class was. She noted his trembling and asked if he wanted to go to the health center.

Of course, Light refused.


	4. Game Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following is some dramatic bullshit. Even more so than the previous chapters. Sometimes I get so caught up in this show that I forget that it, too, contains some dramatic bullshit. Then I remember that potato chips are a thing.   
> I tried to re-write this several times, cut the bs down to a bare minimum but I can’t take it all away when this whole chapter is, in essence, 110% dramatic bullshit. I can’t deny it what it wants so badly to be. I can’t change its true form.  
> But I hope you enjoy it regardless.

Mogi told L of the girl in Light’s morning class, the girl he shared lunch with, the girl he spent time with after his classes and the girl that visited his house in the middle of the night. The last one was known to have “KIRA” marked on her neck. Misa Amane. Most likely candidate for the position of second Kira.

L wished that Mogi had given him this information immediately instead of waiting for the morning. Maybe then he wouldn’t have said all those foolish things. He blamed it on the sugar deficit, which was clearly responsible for his momentary lack of common sense.

The World’s Greatest Detective stared at his laptop and realized that he was losing.

The safe path was no longer a viable option. It was time to take a gamble. Upon reaching this decision his probability for survival shot astronomically low. When he explained his plan to Watari he was certain the old inventor could approximate the number as well.

Watari looked, for half a moment, like he wanted to hug L. To wrap him up and make him a child again and hide him away in Wammy’s House. Instead, he nodded and prepared to assist in any way he might be needed.

DN

That very evening Kira languished in a cell with bound hands, blindfolded and gagged. His jaw hurt from biting down to hide a grin he couldn’t shake.

He took stock of the situation: He was bruised and bloodied across his limbs and torso. He had a nasty bump on his head and a migraine to match. He shook, and he didn’t know if the cause was shock or repressed laughter because now that he was here the whole situation seemed fucking _hilarious._ He tasted blood. His ears rang under the sound-canceling headphones. His gloves, his watch, and all his clothes were gone. He seemed to be dressed in long-sleeved cotton. Outside his self-awareness was a total void thanks to the cruel deprivation of his senses.

Kira figured that if he couldn’t gather any more information about what was happening around him, he might as well re-evaluate the events that led him here. Rewind, re-watch, and try to figure out how exactly everything went so wrong…

DN

He had received a text from an unknown number halfway through his psychology class. It had a location, a time, and ended with the letter L.

There was only one thing to do. He sent emails to the rest of his teachers feigning illness and requesting the schoolwork for the day, packed up his things, and walked out of the classroom. This was the Good Student prerogative. If you spent most of your time in class being admirable and brilliant, people didn’t get upset on the rare occasion you played hooky, automatically thinking there was a perfectly valid and necessary reason for your absence.

He hailed a cab to Daikoku Pier and resisted the urge to snap at the driver to go faster the entire time. He got out at the first off-road parking lot he spotted, tossed the fare through the window without bothering to count it and began to walk quickly, shoes clipping the sidewalk. He wanted to be the first to arrive. He took note of the wind, forceful enough to render sound from any recording devices unusable. Overhead a bridge rumbled with metal tones evoked by busy traffic. Landside was an abandoned, crumbling warehouse. Riverside was a railing to prevent anyone from falling down the slope into the steely water. And leaning against this railing was a familiar figure.

Tall, spindly, slouching, normally unadorned feet stuffed into ratty sneakers. Baggy clothes and bandages. A shock of messy dark hair and a smooth white mask.

It was downright bizarre seeing him outside instead of cloistered away in a hotel room. Out here anyone could witness his captivating peculiarity.

Light approached. He put a hand on the railing and waited for the other man to speak. Would he sound different when it was just them, outside the screens? Two vastly different types of vigilantes, bound together and stretched apart by too many threads to name, staring across the harbor.

“I ran into someone interesting on my way here,” L informed him.

“Oh?”

“Yes. A girl with a mark like mine.” Light didn’t dare to breathe as L unwrapped his left wrist, revealing letters strip by strip. When the last loop was undone, he held out his wrist for Light’s inspection. “Exactly like this, except it was on her neck.”

K I R A

_Damn it,_ Light thought. Misa hadn’t even been cautious enough to wear her choker! But wait… L had met Misa. Had she seen his face? No, surely not, or L wouldn’t risk telling him now. L wouldn’t jeopardize everything over a chance encounter. This could only be a ruse. Why would he…?

Wary, Light reached out to trace the letters. The skin felt so fragile, so soft.

“Why are you showing me this?” Light asked. L withdrew his arm and took his time figuring out what to say next. Light was left without facial expressions to read his thoughts, only wide frozen eyes.

“You are aware that I am far from a perfect person, Light-kun. I have many flaws, but I consider one of my worst to be my selfishness.

“Years ago, when this mark first appeared, it read Light Yagami. I never sought you out because at the time I valued my independence. I did not want or need a soulmate, or the vulnerability that would come with one. But when my mark changed to Kira… It was easy, finding out who you were. I could have stopped you at any time, but I didn’t. I have allowed _hundreds_ to die, because…” The bandage twisted tight in his fingers. “Because I was selfish, and I thought I could save you.”

“…You _what?”_ Kira asked, barely restraining the maniacal urge to laugh. God, this _fool._ This was even better than he’d expected.

The mask bobbed in a nod. “I wanted to save you from what you had become. I wanted to make an exception for no other reason than my attachment to you. Which was… inexcusable.” L turned resolutely away from the distant bank and began wrapping the bandage back around his wrist. “But no more. I was wrong about you, Light Yagami.”

“…What are you saying?” Kira asked, voice low with the feeling that he was not going to like where this was going.

“I am admitting defeat. I have given up on Light Yagami for good because he can’t be saved. I have recently concluded there is nothing but a merciless killer where he used to be. After this, I will go to the police with the evidence I have accumulated and I _will_ put you behind bars. Kira’s killings end today.” Light tried to follow L’s logic. He thought he knew the detective, but this… this was starting to piss him off.

“And you gave me advance notice because…?” The baggy shirt jumped with the motion of L’s shrug.

“A final courtesy. If you had the power to kill me, you would have by now.”

“Right… Can I say my piece?”

“Of course.”

“ _Fuck you_.” Light felt his own mask, the polite, earnest college student slipping away. It was wonderful to finally say what he truly thought. None of it would surprise L. “That, was it? That was your reason? Because you wanted to _save_ me? I don’t want or need your conceited hero complex or your soulmate magical fairy-tale crap!” He gasped for breath through his fury; the hand with his mark was burning. He ripped his glove off and made a fist, the black mark on brazen display. “You’re L! You're supposed to be the greatest detective in the world! The L I know would never give up on a case halfway. If your goal was to save me, then _stick with it until the end, you bastard!”_ The other man tilted his head inquisitively. His forefinger and thumb pinched the chin of his mask.

“Strange… you are more upset that I’ve decided to give up than you are with the fact that I’m having you arrested.”

“YES!” Light felt close to ripping his hair out, or maybe having a go at L’s. He could even focus enough to try and call out the, "having you arrested," line as a sad and blatant bluff. How much could a soulmark really prove? Would L's sense of justice be satisfied if he made a scapegoat of Light without any conclusive evidence? No, Light had thought all of half an hour ago, but now he wasn't sure. “You expect to call yourself my rival, or hell, even my friend,” he spat this word with pure contempt. “—if you aren’t determined to win or die trying?! I cannot BELIEVE you—you want to give it all up?! _I ought to kill you right now!!!_ ”

“…Hm. A peculiar reaction, but not altogether unexpected.” L spread his arms and Light could sense if not see that he was smiling. “You are welcome to try, Kira. But you’ll have to unmask me first.” The killer paused.

The sole obstacle of L’s demise was right there, just out of arm’s reach. All he had to do was tear it down and the game would be over. He would win. He could reshape the world.

Kira focused his entire awareness on that damnable mask. Then he lunged.

L slid back, an easy dodge.

Light stepped forwards and grabbed his opponent’s shoulder while attempting to hook a leg behind his knee and drag him off balance.

L threw the first punch. An outright brawl commenced. Several times, Kira felt his fingers slipping on the smooth surface of the mask, never gaining enough purchase to rip it off before L glided away. He got a sharp kick to the chest for his efforts, propelling him backward. He picked himself up and jumped forward, reaching, reaching, trying to will his arm a few inches longer…

His fingers caught on the edge of the mask and in that moment, Kira felt victory surge through his blood.

Then L’s arms latched onto his waist, pulled him close—

And flipped him over his shoulder. Light’s head hit the railing and he slumped on the pavement, dazed by the ringing between his ears. When his vision cleared again, the detective had vanished.

He… that fucker was _running_.

Light spat a wad of bloody spittle out of his mouth and probed at where he’d bitten his cheek. "Bastard _,"_ he muttered spitefully. Using the railing for support he got to his feet. He was just about to give chase when he remembered L’s words from the start of their conversation. His mouth twisted into something more grimace than smile as he took out his phone. Misa picked up on the second ring and greeted him with the most annoying phrase he could fathom.

“Bright Light~!” She had been pitching various nicknames to him. They were all awful.

“Not now Misa, this is important!”

“Aw, but I thought we were finally gonna have that love-chat…” Her disappointment seeped down the connection. Light clutched the bump on his head dimly aware that there was no blood, which was good, but unable to repress the spikes of pain it was giving him.

“I need you to tell me… Try hard to remember… Did you run into anyone unusual today?”

“Hmmm? What do you mean?”

“Tall, shaggy dark hair, he might have been wearing a mask or holding one.” She paused, thinking hard.

“I’m sorry Light, I haven’t seen anyone with a mask.” Light closed his eyes, his hands shaking. It was over. L won. It was all over. “But I did see someone tall with messy dark hair! He bumped into me on the street, gave me a really weird look, and walked away without even apologizing which was RUDE!” His eyes snapped open and he spoke with renewed urgency.

“Did he have bandages around his wrists?!”

“I couldn’t tell, his sleeves were covering them. I _did_ notice that he had the _worst. Fashion sense. Ever._ It was booooring!~” Light hardly dared to breathe.

“Describe his eyes.”

“Hmmm… Big dark and creepy? They had huge bags under them, which is honestly just poor form. If he can’t sleep more, he could at least use concealer. It takes about ten seconds and makes such a huge difference!” Holy shit. Holy shit Misa really _had_ seen L’s face.

Light was going to win after all.

“THAT’S IT, THAT’S IT MISA THAT WAS L!!!” She gasped over the phone.

“It was?!”

“Yes, Misa, do you have a piece of your notebook on you?! You have to kill him _right now_ he’s going to tell the police everything!”

“B-but, Light!” The blonde sounded close to tears. “I don’t remember his name! I thought he was just a random person; I didn’t bother checking—” Light didn’t even hesitate. Why had he ever felt so possessive over L’s name? It was only a name, an instrument to his conquest.

“It’s _Lawliet,_ Misa, his name is _L. Lawliet!!!_ That’s capitol L dot L-a-w-l-i-e-t, for fuck’s sake write it down Misa, kill him for me _right now!”_

“Right!” she chirped. “But, um, Light?”

_“What?!”_

“I gave you my Death Note!” Light went cold and his knees suddenly seemed a lot less inclined to hold him upright. He slumped against the railing. _Why didn’t I plan for this?!_

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m on set, but I can leave!”

“I’m at Daikoku Pier, underneath the Yokohama Bay Bridge. How soon can you get here?”

“Mmmm… Twenty minutes if I catch a cab?”

“Make it fifteen.”

“Okay Light! I lov—” He hung up before she could finish her sentence. Then he spent a good minute or two staring at his phone while his heartbeat slowly returned to normal. He deliberated and then decided to trigger the virus remotely from his phone that would completely wipe his computer. Better to be safe than sorry.

This didn’t feel real. He was about to kill L.

Light looked east to the other side and, now that he was so close to obtaining it, imagined once again what his perfect world would be like. Across the globe, children would never fear kidnappings. No one would be subject to sexual assault. The only murders would be those of passion, and even then, the killers might off themselves as soon as their identity was discovered for fear of his wrath. No theft, no greed, no corruption.

He looked at the back of his hand and thought of all the games they’d played. Things would get boring without L. Lawliet in the world. But one life and a little boredom was a small price to pay for his vision.

When he heard tires pulling up the gravel drive, it wasn’t a cab. It was a police car.

His father stepped out, hair messy and scowl firm. He looked a bit like he was breaking apart.

“…Dad?”

“L sent me to tell you that Misa Amane has just been arrested under suspicion of being the Second Kira. We obtained a warrant to search her apartment and found compelling evidence. And, son…” He brought out a pair of handcuffs. “The warrant also allowed us to collect her data. As a precautionary measure, we’ve been recording all her calls since early this morning.”

Everything went weightless except for the words clattering inside his aching head.

_Recording all her calls…_

He couldn’t have handed them more damning evidence if he’d issued a confession under oath.

Soichiro held out the handcuffs. “Please Light, just come quietly…” Light looked into his eyes and the astonishing thing was that he saw no fear. Just bitter disappointment and heartache.

It was then that Light knew exactly how badly he’d been played.

He brought his hand up to cover his mouth, smothering a laugh or a sob. There was this soaring elation that he wasn’t sure how to explain. If he had an hour with some psychology and brain chemistry books he probably could.

They said that soulmates weren’t supposed to be what you hoped for. They were supposed to be _better_. By no means perfect as a person, but perfect for _you_. L was by no means perfect. But who wanted that? Perfection in a person was unbearably boring. Maybe the perfect soulmate for Kira had always been the only one who could understand him enough to defeat him.

He allowed his father to cuff him, guide him into the backseat of the car, and close the door without a word of protest.


	5. The Kira Case Files

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to give an enormous thank-you to every person who left comments and kudos on this fic. I try not to obsess over numbers when I post things but watching them slowly but steadily climb and getting to read people's responses to every new chapter brought me a lot of joy each week.   
> Also, I just realized I started posting this because of quarantine and I didn't post one week so it's already been SIX WEEKS of quarantine for me! I can't complain, it's been cozy and I'm healthy if a little bored and I hope everyone else is too.   
> One of my biggest motivations for writing this story was that I kept finding really great Lawlight soulmate AU's that weren't complete. I finally got so frustrated I decided I would just do it myself, and even though it took YEARS I didn't let myself post anything until it was done. With that in mind, here is the final chapter. I hope you enjoy it.

Rem had a problem.

A terrible, horrible, no good very bad problem. The kind of problem she didn’t know how to solve on her own.

Misa had forgotten her.

Rem reminded herself that this was not actually the terrible horrible no good very bad problem, it was just a symptom of it. The real problem was Misa was blindfolded and bound to a two-wheel dolly in a basement without a clue about how she wound up there. Because she’d relinquished ownership of her Death Note.

And by extension, Rem.

Not that she was upset by that or anything.

So now Rem had a dilemma. She had to get Misa out of police custody. Unfortunately, she was now invisible, intangible, and otherwise irrelevant to everyone except Light Yagami.

Which posed yet another dilemma considering Light was equally blind and bound in a different basement. At this rate they were both going to be executed, and while Rem could not give fewer fucks about Light, Misa…

Such a death was unacceptable for Misa.

Light had left no instructions. There was only one thing she could do.

She wrote a note.

DN

L saw the note drop out of thin air directly in front of him. The whole task force saw it spontaneously appear as well. Matsuda wondered if L knew magic tricks, and the rest were just as astounded as L picked the note up and read its message.

_L,_

_I am a Shinigami. More specifically, I am the Shinigami who gave the second Kira her powers. I am willing to cooperate with you in exchange for a plea deal that will guarantee the second Kira is exempt from the death penalty and gets the shortest sentence possible._

_Every Shinigami has a Death Note. If someone writes a name in a Death Note, that person dies of a heart attack within forty seconds. Time of death, actions until death, and method of death can be specified. No human can see a Shinigami until they touch a piece of their Death Note._

_Don’t believe me?_

_Look behind you._

L looked over his shoulder and to the members of the task force, it looked like he fell out of his chair and crawled halfway under his desk for absolutely no reason whatsoever. If they thought they were surprised by a piece of paper appearing out of thin air they were even more shocked now, because L’s expression had never been so easy to read.

Gradually, his fear transformed into curiosity, joy, and hope. He reached out his hand and said:

“It is nice to meet you.”

Something invisible shook it.

DN

L wanted to make a record of his interview of the Shinigami, whether it was for evidence in court, for science, or for prosperity. However, the trouble with recording a Shinigami was audio and video are useless to anyone who hasn’t touched a Death Note. Poor Moji happened to be the fastest typist, so he was assigned the task of sitting in the corner of the room and typing up every single word that was spoken.

DN

Page 1

**June 03, 2004**

**13:05**

**Witness:** Rem the Shinigami

**Interviewer:** Detective L

**Scribe:** Kanzo Moji (AKA the only one in this room with a perfectly normal name and no secret aliases or improvised titles)

**L:** Please state for the record your name and what you are.

**REM:** My name is Rem, and I am a Shinigami.

**L:** Would you mind explaining what a Shinigami is?

**REM:** A Shinigami is a Death God. I’m probably breaking all kinds of rules by telling you this but yes, Death Gods exist, and we’ve been watching over your world for as long as humans have been around. Shinigami are immortal, but only if we dole out death to humans. When a Shinigami kills a human the remainder of that human’s lifespan is added to ours.

**MOJI:** Sorry, could you wait a minute?

**L:** …All caught up?

**MOJI:** Not if you keep talking. Okay, continue.

Page 2

**L:** Rem, would you please explain exactly how Shinigami kill humans?

**REM:** By writing a human’s name in our Death Note.

**L:** Is writing a name the only requirement?

**REM:** No, we must know the face of the human we intend to kill.

**L:** Do these requirements apply to any human who might use a Death Note?

**REM:** Yes, they do.

**L:** Would you mind describing what a Death Note is and what it looks like?

**REM:** Sure thing. Would you like me to show you mine? [L doesn’t respond verbally, he stares at her for a few seconds before nodding. Now Rem is bringing out a large black notebook and opening it on the table. That’s… that’s a lot of names.]

**REM:** All death notes look pretty much the same. They used to be leathery and crusty, but the King issued new modern versions. ~~~~

DOCUMENT PAGE 3 CLASSIFICATION LEVEL 5

Page 4

**L:** [Has been getting exponentially more excited the more the freakishly tall ghost lady explains the rules of the Death Note, no I won’t cut that out] Understood. You mentioned a king, what is Shinigami society like?

**REM:** We’re mostly a bunch of lazy bastards. We gamble and gossip and don’t do much else. Our whole world is bleak, windy, and gray. Sometimes we’re so lazy we forget to write names in the notebook and die. The King keeps us in line and controls the distribution of Death Notes.

**MOJI:** L, this is interesting, but we should probably focus more on the case.

**L:** Of course. Now, a question of great importance: How many Death Notes are currently in the human realm?

**REM:** Two, one for each Kira. However, you should know pages from the Death Note that are torn out are still operational.

**L:** How many pages does a Death Note have?

**REM:** I don’t know for sure, but it never runs out.

**L:** …But that. That is not physically possible.

**REM:** Don’t question it, it is what it is.

DOCUMENT PAGE 5-6 CLASSIFICATION LEVEL 5

Page 7

**L:** Are you suggesting that the Death Note might in some way influence a human owner?

**REM:** It’s not out of the question. However ultimately, humans do have free will, even if the Death Note can somehow corrupt them. Light’s choices are his own.

**L:** Of course. As are Misa Amane’s

**REM:** [Does not respond, looks kind of uncomfortable if I’m reading Shinigami expressions right, but maybe she always looks like that.]

**L:** Speaking of Misa, I was wondering how she was able to kill without knowing someone’s name?

**REM:** Misa traded half her lifespan to me in exchange for Shinigami eyes.

**L:** …What?

**REM:** It’s a deal all Death Note holders can make. A Shinigami’s eyes will automatically tell them the age and remaining lifespan of someone just by looking at their face.

**L:** [Stares at the table for several moments.]

**Moji:** …L?

**L:** I see. This… This explains quite a lot.

DOCUMENT PAGE 8 CLASSIFICATION LEVEL 5

Page 9

**L:** I must thank you again for your compliance, Rem-chan

**REM:** It’s nothing. So long as this is what’s best for Misa.

**L:** I can assure you it is, the more you talk the easier it will be to build a defense for her.

**REM:** If you fail to protect her L—

**L:** Yes yes you’ve already threatened to kill me several times this afternoon alone, and I’ve already promised to do all I can for Misa.

**MOJI:** Even though she thinks you’re a stalker and calls you a pervert every other sentence?

**L:** Moji-san, you’re not helping. [No I’m not, but I’m sure as hell typing all of this down.]

**REM:** I want her conditions improved. You should at the very least tell her that she’s being held under suspicion of being the second Kira.

**L:** We have told her this, Rem. Several times. I am increasingly frustrated by her inability to even consider what we are telling her is the truth.

Page 10

**R** **EM:** Try getting a female cop to talk to her.

**L:** Hmm… an interesting suggestion. Please explain your reasoning.

**REM:** Misa has constructed a reality based on her prior experience and what few facts she can immediately observe. She’s already created a scenario in which she has been kidnapped, and she associates your voice with her kidnapper. She adheres to this scenario for the sake of her own mental stability. If you introduce her to a new voice, a stable, authoritative woman who she is more likely to trust, she can be guided out of this reality. Misa knows her fanbase is mostly made up of men so a woman, especially a serious woman who claims to be a cop, is not likely to be an accomplice of a fan who’s kidnapped her, lending your argument more credibility. Also, if you start treating her like a basic human being she might start believing you’re part of a government-sanctioned operation.

**L:** But… we’re not part of a government-sanctioned operation.

**REM:** Then **pretend.** [I don’t know if Shinigami can growl exactly, but Rem looks very scary]

**L:** I see. I appear to have made several grave errors. I will take your advice into account Rem, but I am afraid I cannot release Misa from her restraints until we have proof, she is unable to kill anyone. Fortunately, you can help with that.

Page 11

**REM:** Say the word, I’ll do anything.

**L:** I’m glad to hear that. If you can tell us where the Death Notes—all the Death Notes, and any piece of paper from them you know the location of— are hidden, then we could unbind her, although she would still be in custody.

**REM:** Light hides the Death Notes in the false bottom of his desk drawer. It’s booby-trapped to light on fire and destroy all the evidence unless it’s opened from a small hole in the bottom of the drawer with the ink cartridge of a pen.

**L:** [Is shooketh.]

**REM:** What, you thought I was gonna trust Light with that thing without knowing where it was?

**L:** Moji, you can rest your hands for a moment, I must send an immediate dispatch to the Yagami house.

**MOJI:** Lead by the Chief?

**L** : Of course, who else?

**-TRANSCRIPT PAUSED-**

Page 12

**14:10**

**-TRANSCRIPT CONTINUED-**

**L:** Thank you for your patience Rem.

**REM:** So long as you make sure the Death Note doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

**L:** No one will touch it except Chief Yagami, Watari, and eventually me.

**REM:** Good.

**L:** Now, earlier you mentioned a Shinigami who gave Light his spare Death Note named Ryuk. I would like to speak with him. Do you think you can bring him here?

**REM:** He’ll probably show up here all on his own, now that you’ve got the Death Notes. By the way—they’re yours in sixty days of you don’t let the owners touch it or destroy them.

**L:** Sorry, what?

**REM:** Just thought you should know. It’s not written in the official rules since it doesn’t happen often, but it’s a rule.

**L:** …Fantastic. [L does not look happy to hear he’ll be the new owner of two Death Notes.]

**REM:** You should be able to see Ryuk once you touch Light’s notebook. Just bribe him with apples and he’ll talk.

**L:** Apples?

Page 13

**REM:** The guy’s obsessed with apples. You’re the same way, right? You’ve been eating chocolate-dipped strawberries this whole time. [He has.]

**MOJI:** You have.

**L:** …This the sort of day where chocolate-dipped strawberries are called for.

**REM:** Okay then.

**MOJI:** Hey, do you mind if we stop for tonight? My hands are cramping up.

**L:** Yes, I think this is enough for now. I will soon become occupied with analyzing the Death Notes so I will not keep you here any longer. Thank you for your assistance, Moji-san.

**MOJI:** No problem. This was almost as interesting as pretending to be Misa’s manager.

**REM:** One more thing, this is important: A human loses all memory of holding the Death Note once they lose ownership of it. So, if they gave it away or had it stolen from them, or if it was destroyed, they would lose all memory of ever having it. Three days into confinement Misa gave up her ownership of her Death Note. Consequentially, she no longer remembers being Kira. Or me. [She sounds annoyed, or maybe disappointed when she says the last bit.]

Page 14

**MOJI** : …Why didn’t you LEAD with that!?!

**REM:** There was a lot of information to cover. I started with the basics and worked my way up.

**L:** [Looks like he’s just seen God or something, how am I supposed to put that face into words???] This… this changes everything. With this… It would be as if they were never Kira in the first place.

**REM:** Really? That’s good to hear. Maybe I should have led with that.

**MOJI:** What do you mean as if they were never Kira, L they’re murderers! The people they killed aren’t magically going to come back. You can’t just exonerate them—

**L:** True, but they won’t remember their crimes. I’ll start researching precedent… How are cases like this handled in Japan in comparison to INTERPOL…? [He stands up and walks out of the room like we don’t even exist. I’m left here, writing this all down in a room with a Death God who has a crush on a serial-killer model.]

**MOJI:** So… How are you liking the human realm?

**REM:** Lately? A lot more than I expected.

**-END OF TRANSCRIPT-**

**Record of Communication Between Taskforce HQ and Cell #2**

**June 05, 2004, 09:30**

**NM:** Amane-san, can you hear me?

**MA:** H-hello? Who’s there?

**NM:** My name is Naomi Misora. I work for the FBI.

**MA:** Oh, thank God! Are you going to get me out of here?!

**NM:** I’m sorry Miss Amane, but you are not kidnapped. You have been arrested under suspicion of being the second Kira.

**MA:** No. That’s not right! That pervert’s been watching me for days, I know it! You have to catch him and help me escape!

**L:** Hello Misa. This is L. Please stop calling me a pervert.

**NM:** L is in fact a great detective. I vouch for him. We worked together to solve the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, and as he is the head of the Kira investigation, your capture falls solely under his authority.

**MA:** …Really?

**NM:** Yes, really.

**MA:** Well I don’t care if he’s a great detective, he’s still a pervert!

**L:** [loud sigh]

**SY:** Amane-chan, we have recently deemed it safe to allow you to move unrestricted. Someone will now remove your blindfold.

**MA:** Finally!!! You detectives are the worst!

**SY:** Misa Amane, do you recognize my voice?

**MA:** …No?

**SY:** I am Chief Yagami of the NPA. Light’s father.

**MA:** Oh! Oh my god Light! Is he okay?! No one will tell me anything!

**SY:** Light is perfectly fine. He is in much the same situation as you right now, as he is under suspicion of being the first Kira.

**MA:** YOU CALL THIS FINE?!

DN

When L finally cut the connection to Misa’s cell, he despaired. This was going to be a long and difficult process.

DN

**Page 1**

**June 05, 2004**

**10:50**

**Witness:** Ryuk the Shinigami

**Interviewer:** L

**Long-Suffering Scribe:** Me

[L does his whole “Please state for the record” thing. His name is Ryuk, he’s a Shinigami, he likes apples. Christ, I didn’t join the NPA for this bullshit.]

**L:** Please recount the events of the night on which you first met Light Yagami.

**RYUK:** [MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH] Met ‘im on the third of December last year, ‘bout a week after I dropped the Death Note. I’ll admit, I wasn’t expecting Light. He sure made things interesting.

**L:** Can you specify?

**RYUK:** Well for starters—[CRUNCH MUNCH CRUNCH SWALLOW]—He killed over a hundred people in that first week.

**L:** [Looks faintly sick. Which probably says a lot, considering he’s dealt with the worst criminals in the world. But then again, it’s difficult for even the best serial killers to kill over a hundred people in one week.]

**RYUK:** When I first appeared to ‘im, I wondered—[CRUUUUUUUNCH]—If I’d got the right guy. [MONCH MONCH MONCH MONCH] Kid looked like a deer that almost became roadkill when he first saw me. Now I know I ain’t pretty, but I was expecting more from someone who sets a record like that, y’aknow? [He isn’t kidding about the not pretty part.]

**L:** No, I wouldn’t know. I can’t imagine Light stayed frightened of you for long.

Page 2

**RYUK:** [Imagine various munchings and crunchings] You’re right. He proved my first impressions wrong fast. Kid was eager to start bragging about his plan to make a perfect world by killing off all the scum. I don’t much care who lives and who dies or whether the world is worse or better off so long as it’s entertaining. And Light? He was the best damn human I could have chosen in that regard. I really lucked out—never a dull moment with him. That potato chip trick cracked me up. [L opens his mouth like he’s about to ask about the potato chip trick, but Ryuk keeps talking and I’m having trouble keeping up—] I should thank you too, L. Things would have been boring if it was just Light killing off whoever he wanted.

THE FOLLOWING EXCERPT REQUIRES LEVEL SIX SECURITY CLASSIFICATION.

ENTER PASSCODE 1: ********

ENTER PASSCODE 2: *********************

\--CONFIRM PERSONAL INDENTIFICATION--

\--AUTHENTICATING--

LEVEL SIX SECURITY CLASSIFICATION CONFIRMED.

RYUK: Y’aknow, I looked over his shoulder a few times when he was messaging you. That was a real cute thing you had going on there—

**L:** You like apples, don’t you Ryuk? [The hell?! L was contacting Kira!?! Since when--]

**RYUK:** What gave it away? [CRUNCH!]

\--EXCERPT END--

**L:** Might I interest you in some apple cobbler? Watari made it special, and I can say from a lifetime of experience that his baking skills are second to none. [Why? Why am I even here anymore?]

**RYUK:** Hmmmmm. There’s apple in that? [Ryuk takes a bite and makes the most God-awful ugly moan I have ever heard. He proceeds to devour the cobbler. Damn, I’m hungry now.]

**L:** Ryuk, can you recount the first instance in which Light used the Death Note?

**RYUK:** What does that matter? [But muffled from eating, and cobbler spilling out between his pointy teeth.]

Page 3

**L:** Consider it simple curiosity on my part.

**RYUK:** Well, [Imagine creative cobbler-eating noises here] from what Light told me, his first time was almost an accident. He didn’t believe it would work but he wanted to try it out. Some guy was holding a bunch of kids hostage, Light saw his face on the news and wrote down his name—BAM! Forty seconds later, the guy was dead.

**L:** And the time after that?

**RYUK:** That was when he figured it out for sure. He saw some biker harassing a woman and overheard his name. He wrote down every variation of the name he could think of and wrote the mode of death down as an accident. What happens? The guy gets hit by an oncoming truck forty seconds later.

**L:** I see… of course, these incidents could have disproportionately impacted Light, made him see using the Death Note as a sort of necessary evil. This explains a lot about Kira’s ideology.

**RYUK:** Yup. [BURPS] Got any more of that cobbler?

**-END OF TRANSCRIPT-**

RECORD REQUIRES LEVEL SIX SECURITY CLASSIFICATION

**Record of Communication Between Taskforce HQ and Cell #1**

**June 05, 2004, 22:06**

**LY:** L, I’m bored.

**L:** You sound like a certain Shinigami.

**LY:** Heh, so you’ve met Ryuk? What did you think?

**L:** Strange, but he has good taste in apple cobbler.

**LY:** I think that has to do more with the apples than the cobbler.

**L:** Fair. What is it you want, Kira?

**LY:** So we’re back to L and Kira now, huh? I wonder if our marks are still like that. I haven’t been able to check. …Hey, don’t go. The least you can do is keep me company before my execution… No? …Bastard.

Page 1

**July 23, 2004**

**07:30**

**Witness: Rem the Shinigami**

**Interviewer: L the Detective**

**Scribe: Kanzo Moji**

**REM:** So, what do you intend to do now?

**L:** Now that we’ve gone public about the case, I intend to destroy the Death Notes, to finish the narrative we’ve told the people.

**REM:** Really?

**L:** Really.

**REM:** You could make a fortune off those things. I’m sure every government in the world would kill to have them.

**L:** Which is a large part of why I must destroy them. Not to mention my concern regarding the Death Note’s potential corruptive influences.

**MOJI:** The last thing we need is L turning into Gollum. [They both stare at me blankly.] Somewhere sometime, someone is reading this and they just laughed.

**REM:** Oooookay… So, once you do this, you can release Misa?

**L:** Yes. She will have to sign a confidentiality contract or the next thing we know she might decide to write a bestselling book about the time she was held hostage and accused of being Kira. But otherwise, she will be entirely free to live her life. The public believes that Kira is dead. Once these Death Notes are destroyed, it will essentially be true.

**MOJI:** You have a pretty selective view on what counts as truth. [L shrugs and doesn’t bother to deny it.] What about the families of everyone he killed, huh? I know he was going after criminals but even criminals can have people that care about them. They don’t get any closure if there’s no trial.

Page 2

**L:** Believe me Moji-san I have taken that into account and I still believe this decision is the best one. A trial of Kira would be messy and dramatic and has the potential to cause a rift in society between his supporters and those who oppose him. If Kira died in an unknown manner while everyone was unaware, nameless, and faceless, everyone will move on faster, even if they never forget.

**MOJI:** Well what if Ryuk or some other Shinigami comes down and hands Light a notebook, and suddenly we’re back at square one?

**REM:** That scenario is unlikely.

**L:** But not impossible.

**REM:** Spare Death Notes are hard to come by, and no Shinigami would be stupid enough to give a human their own personal one. The Shinigami King won’t be happy about these two you’re burning. He’ll see it as a waste, and a source of more bureaucratic paperwork.

**L:** Shinigami have bureaucratic paperwork?

**REM:** If you serve the King you do, which is why only the fresh new idiots volunteer. My point is, if I’m not immediately banished upon returning home I can put in a word for you and it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him to issue a Royal decree prohibiting all Shinigami from handing Light another Death Note.

**L:** That would be more than helpful, Rem.

**REM:** You’ve been more than helpful. The least I can do is return the favor. I’ll make sure to keep an eye on Misa too. She won’t be having any relapses on my watch.

Page 3

**MOJI:** Even though that means she can’t see or speak to you? [They both go quiet. Hey, someone’s gotta ask the hard questions around here. L is an evasive guy when he doesn’t want to acknowledge something.]

**L:** I am sorry about Misa, Rem-chan

**REM:** …It’s alright. It never would have worked out. At least this way I can watch her live out the rest of her life in peace. It’s gotten a lot longer. She had less than a year left when she was captured, but now she has decades.

**L:** Decades of Misa Amane being the most irritating idol ever.

**REM:** Better an irritating idol than a mass murderer.

**L:** That’s not a very high bar, but I suppose I will grant you that.

**-END OF TRANSCRIPT-**

DN

It took her kidnappers way too long to get it, but finally, _finally_ those dummy detectives realized that Misa was not Kira, or second Kira, or any other Kira-related accomplice. Once she put on something more presentable than a linen shift and a bare face, she was ready to go back home and see just how much of the world she’d missed. And take a very long shower. One of the nicer detectives called her a cab back to her apartment. He also asked for her autograph. Misa was feeling too petty to indulge in any fans who hold her captive for weeks on end, so she denied him.

When she got home she kicked off her shoes, stripped off her shirt and was down to her underwear by the time she reached the bathroom. She turned on the shower and went to inspect how confinement had damaged her precious face while the water warmed It was only a little vain, an actress’s face was her most precious commodity after all. It would be tragic if she had eyebags or broke out into pimples from weeks without her skincare routine.

But it wasn’t the eyebags or general grime that made her eyes widen with horror. It was her soulmark.

Every letter had faded into silvery scar tissue.

Misa stepped into the shower, curled up into a ball on the tiles and didn’t come out for several hours. In the living room, Rem fretted.

DN

RECORD REQUIRES LEVEL SIX CLASSIFICATION

**Record of Communication Between Taskforce HQ and Cell#1**

**June 23, 2004, 21:04**

**LY:** \--SUBJECT INAUDIBLE--

**L:** Light Yagami. What do you remember?

**LY:** It’s you.

**L:** Light-kun, please answer the question.

**LY:** Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?

**L:** Approximately half a year, since I made my presence known to you in a news broadcast on December fifth—

**LY:** No. Longer. Since I first saw your name on my hand.

**L:** …I think it is safe to say that you, Light Yagami, are no longer Kira.

**LY:** I’m so glad it’s you.

**L:** While the circumstances that led to our meeting was… far from ideal… I feel the same, Light-kun.

DN

June 24, 2004

15:32

Unknown Caller

“Hello? You’ve reached Naomi.”

“Naomi Misora, this is L.”

“L. Is everything alright?”

“…Perhaps. I called seeking clarification. Naomi Misora, I once told you that I could not forgive any evil. That justice is the most powerful form of kindness. At the time, I was a hundred percent certain of this.”

“I see. And now?”

“…There are some people who can only be saved through forgiveness, not justice. Please tell me… is it selfish to want to help someone who was doomed by their very nature and circumstances?”

“L.”

“Yes?”

“I think about the consequences of my decision every day, but I still don’t regret sparing that child.”

“…”

“We all follow rules in our lives. Mine were set by my superiors. Yours were set by your own convictions. But we must remember that we are all human. Sometimes, we make mistakes. Sometimes, we break our own rules. And sometimes we do it because it feels right, even if logic tells us it isn’t. We’re irrational like that.”

“…Thank you.”

“Of course. I wish you all the best.”

DN

L only realized that it probably would have been polite to congratulate Mrs. Misora-Penber on her marriage once he hung up. Oh well. It was times like these when it paid to cultivate expectations of obliviousness to social conventions.

DN

Light Yagami lay curled up on his cell bed with his eyes closed. He had no idea what time it was. After weeks without sunlight his body-clock was thrown off beyond repair. He couldn’t make rough estimates with the blocks of time he spent sleeping since he hadn’t been getting any sort of consistent rest considering his perpetual state of utter exhaustion.

Light found that he doesn’t mind this, his bound limbs, or the rest of the discomfort he faced as much as he probably should have.

He lay on the bed with his eyes closed and in the darkness, he imagined a large bird perch inside his cell. At the top of this perch, a man wearing an owl mask sat, balancing on the bar with his bare feet.

“Light-kun?” the owl mask inquired. Light opened his eyes, shook off the ridiculous vision and picked up their conversation where he dropped it.

“Sorry. I got lost in thought.”

“Are you feeling alright?” the tinny speaker attached to the bars asked.

“As alright as I can be, I guess.” There was a quiet pause. Light kept waiting for L to bid him goodbye and cut the connection, but he didn’t. Eventually Light said, “I won’t ask to see your face. I can’t trust myself that much yet, and you shouldn’t either.”

“Do you want to?” Light hesitated and chose to answer truthfully.

“God yes. I can’t help it. You know the myth of Psyche and Eros?”

“Oh.”

“What?”

“I’ve just come to the disturbing realization that when Light-kun is not Kira, he is a hopeless romantic.” Light laughed and hauled himself upright. He sat on the edge of the bed to look directly at the camera right next to the speaker. Like this, it felt more like a conversation. He imagined the expressions L might be making, the way his fingers and toes fidget. It’s been so long Light wondered if he was forgetting what it looked like when anyone emoted, never mind L specifically.

Speaking of—

“Guilty as charged. I asked Matsuda-san about your eyes, you know?”

“Please stop.”

“If you say so.” Light dropped his gaze from the camera to the cell bars. He sat as though he’d just started entertaining himself with an intriguing mind-puzzle and would be quite content for some while.

“…I changed my mind.” Light laughed at how quickly he was able to get the response he wanted. The laughter must have made his tongue loose because the next thing that slipped out almost made him want to find a way to escape this tiny cell and L’s inscrutable gaze so he could disappear forever.

“I just think you’re kind of perfect.” The spluttering, choking static that came across the speakers was satisfying enough to alleviate Light’s embarrassment.

_“Tell me you don’t really think that.”_ L sounded strained and concerned for Light’s mental wellbeing.

“For me,” Light amended. “Specifically for me. You’re still an infuriating bastard.”

“And you’re turning a very interesting shade of pink,” L countered. It took all of Light’s self-control not to duck his face—which was indeed turning pink—away from the camera.

“Well, you know, I just woke up for what seems like the first real time in months only to learn that I’m Kira and my soulmate is… you.” The way he said _you_ left even L without a doubt that Light thought this was a good thing. “I’m almost disappointed about losing the chance to solve the mystery of who you are on my own.”

“It is the best-kept secret in the world,” the detective bragged.

“I would’ve solved it.”

“Maybe.” There another a lull in the conversation, one of those lulls where they were both too pre-occupied with thoughts for words. Light the first to break it once again.

“So, when’s my execution?” he asked in a teasing tone, trying to cover-up the slight pit of dread he felt in his stomach through sheer will.

“Ah,” L said. “About that. …Never.”

_“What?!”_ Light exclaimed, shooting off his bed before remembering that his ankles were wrapped in duct tape. He hopped a few times in a very undignified manner to avoid crashing to the floor in an even more undignified manner and stared at the camera with disbelief once he found stable footing.

“As far as the world is concerned Kira is dead and that’s all anyone needs to know.”

“Lawli—L, you can’t—!” The speaker made the clicking noise Light knew meant the connection was cut. He was about to rail against this—the bastard always did this, leaving him mid-conversation—when he heard the door at the end of the hall open.

There were footsteps, accompanied by the sound of rattling cart wheels. The cart was the first thing to appear, covered in a white cloth, laden with a silver tray, and because of this Light expected to see Watari pushing it.

The figure who came into view slouched in such a manner Watari would never be caught dead doing. Light’s jaw might have dropped a little. L was standing before him, not a mask in sight.

For several long moments, he could only stare. Luckily L had a doctorate in uncomfortable staring, so he didn’t seem to mind.

Light took two shaky breaths and managed to stammer out, “You shouldn’t be—"

“Shush,” the detective interrupted, taking out a set of keys and a small pocketknife. He started unlocking the cell door. “You compared us to Psyche and Eros. While I find this a sentimental and altogether absurd analogy, I thought it best to skip any metaphorical trials and trips to the underworld. We start over. Right now.” With that, L stepped into the cell and knelt to start cutting through the tape binding Light’s ankles.

Light stood there in something that felt like awe. It was a foreign concept, respecting and caring for someone enough to be rendered awestruck by them. “You’re crazy,” he whispered.

“No, I am a genius, although the two are frequently confused.”

“You really shouldn’t trust me.” L looked up then, having finished freeing his legs, and said,

“My soulmark would beg to differ.” He pulled aside the collar of his stupidly baggy shirt and there, right above the detective’s heart, were the kanji the spelled out Light’s name.

Light suddenly found it very difficult to breathe.

Then L stood so he could free Light’s wrists. The first thing Light did was clutch at his own heart. He didn’t even pull his shirt aside to check because he already _knew_ L’s name must be stamped over his heart in neat black letters. L. Lawliet.

He turned and put a hand on L’s chest, and when he smoothed out the fabric, he could see hints of the mark through the white. Then he raised his hand to cup L’s jaw and stared at him so intensely that even the detective started to grow uncomfortable.

“Light-kun?” Light smiled and said,

“Matsuda was wrong about your eyes.” Then, wonders of wonders, _L blushed._ It was barely there but Light was _delighted._ He stopped L from looking away by trapping his face with both of his twitchy, half-asleep hands and said, “See? Perfect.”

All those years wasted perfecting his sappy shojo prince act to get girls to go on dates with him for sake of normalcy, only for Light to finally mean the romantic bullshit he was spewing. It made L splutter and stammer in a manner so unlike him, it was worth it.

The detective stumbled back, practically hid behind the cart he’d pushed down the corridor and shoved it in Light’s direction, blurting, “Eat something Illbeback.” He slammed the cell bars shut, locked it, and raced down the corridor like he was trying to outrun a heart attack. Light theorized that L wasn’t used to compliments that weren’t about his intelligence or accomplishments. He laughed at this strangely adorable behavior and took the cover off the tray.

It was a fruit salad. Fucking fruit salad. Most likely the result of a compromise between L’s sweet-tooth and Watari’s insistence that Light needed to eat healthy. The brunet shook his head, picked up the fork and took a bite, only to grimace when he realized the strawberry he’d just eaten was dusted with sugar.

Too sweet. Typical.

Well… Light took another bite and thought that he could get used to it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last note: I'm thinking about making this a series or adding a chapter about Matt Mello and Near and their soulmarks. I can't guarantee if/when that would happen, but if you're interested bookmark this or leave a comment or something.   
> And now, BLOOPERS. 
> 
> L: I would be a fool to overlook the fact that your father is licensed to carry a gun.  
> Light: The trick is to get my mom to like you, then he can’t say no.   
> L: And how exactly do I do that?  
> Light: Cook something nice, bring it to a family dinner and be on your best behavior. Promise to help Sayu with her homework and you’ll get her on your side. Add that to the fact that you’re my soulmate and then dad really can’t complain. 
> 
> Light: ...We’re gonna have the weirdest story when people ask how we met.


End file.
